Effect of nitrogen doping on the properties of AlSiO film for wide bandgap semiconductors

A gate insulator film with a wide bandgap and a high dielectric constant is required to achieve high-power field effect transistors (FET) using wide bandgap semiconductors such as SiC, GaN, and diamond. It is observed that an aluminum silicon oxide (AlSiO) film containing 11% nitrogen has a high resistivity of 5 × 1015 Ω cm, and the leakage current of a nitrogen-doped aluminum silicon oxide (AlSiON) film is also suppressed at high temperature, as compared to the AlSiO film. For example, the leakage current at 240 °C is four orders of magnitude smaller than that of the AlSiO film, suggesting that the AlSiON film is applicable to high temperature operation of wide bandgap semiconductor devices.